


The Hidden Queen

by Autumn_Llleaves



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Heavy Angst, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 06:02:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12162960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Autumn_Llleaves/pseuds/Autumn_Llleaves
Summary: Maege Mormont doesn't like it that her nephew marries a young Valyrian blonde again. But then, she can't help but observe certain details about the girl he claims to have brought from Lys…





	The Hidden Queen

"My lady wife, Dany... Dana Sylare from Lys," he says shyly, as if he is five-and-ten instead of nearly fifty. The slim woman by his side lifts up her hood, and Maege can only raise an eyebrow and shoot her prodigal nephew a murderous look.

She elaborates on it later, when the new Lady Mormont is taken to meet Alysane and her bear-children.

"Are you perfectly mad? Has life taught you nothing?" she rages at him. "I thought you would learn your lesson after what that Hightower woman did to you and to our honor! If you are so eager for young girls, you could have at least picked somebody from the North who knows what it's like around here! Or, I swear, I would have even accepted an ironborn maid, they are barbarians but they are strong enough, no doubt of that."

"Yes, Aunt Maege."

" _Yes, Aunt Maege_! All over again, you bring here one of these delicate Valyrian ninnies, as if you had forgotten what the last one has done!"

"Dany is strong, stronger than many, Aunt. I assure you. Strong and good-hearted and…"

"…and wife to a soft-brained old fool! Listen, if she says one word against Bear Island, one word…"

"She won't. Please, Aunt. She has been through a lot. Lost everything she held dear. Lost her home, a husband, a ch… four children! Be gentle with her. She is a sweet soul."

Maege heeds his word: she knows what it was like to lose _one_ of her children, and can't imagine how the Lyseni survived losing all. As days pass, she teaches herself to be kinder with Dany. Especially since the latter has no desire to turn Bear Island into a copy of Oldtown; on the contrary, she's always so careful with money that _Maege_ sometimes has to urge her to spend a sum on this or that.

Of course, Jorah worships the ground his wife walks upon, and Maege doesn't like it – she prefers a more practical and sane approach to marriage. But she's grateful Dany doesn't demand any rich gifts as proof of his love – a welcome change after Lynesse.

It's obvious and quite natural that Dany's own feelings towards her husband are much less intense than his. Maege can't help but wonder how she ever agreed to marry him. Maybe it was his sad backstory that attracted her pity – more than once, she hints that she knows about Lynesse and the failed marriage. She looks at him as one looks at a friend, she seeks his advice and confides in him, but where he is passionate, she is passive.

As she sheds some of her melancholy and becomes more confident in managing the affairs of Bear Island, Maege begins to truly approve of her nephew's choice. When she speaks to the steward or the maester or gives an audience to the smallfolk, Dany has a queenly bearing.

That sudden passing thought sticks in Maege's head for some reason.

"Which part of Lys are you from, dear?" she asks one day. Dany is clearly unsettled by the question.

"I'm not from Lys itself, I was born in a small town close to it," she says.

"Your Common Tongue is wonderful, I must say."

She brightens:

"Jorah taught me."

_Jorah indeed. How did he manage to teach you the Crownlands dialect, I wonder now?_

"Never thought he could instruct anyone but squires in anything but swordplay."

Dany is now visibly uncomfortable. At this moment, Jorah himself comes into the room, and she is quick to excuse herself.

She has a strange fondness for lizards. As spring draws near, lizards start to appear in the castle again, and Dany adores to feed them and play with them. They are never afraid of her. On her way to make a peace treaty with Winterfell, Asha Greyjoy stops at Mormont Keep and, having heard of Dany's tastes, brings her a fire salamander, found during journeys, she says (taken during raids, Maege thinks), in the South.

Dany is delighted. The salamander, though, soon falls sick in the cold climate, and one day Dany quietly gives it to one of their knights who's going to King's Landing for a tourney.

"Set it free there."

"Of course, my lady."

Later that year, Alysane has to travel to the capital and in her letters tells Maege that the salamander lives in the Red Keep and it recognized her. Jorah offers Dany a trip to King's Landing too, and Maege berates him:

"A trip? To see a  _lizard_?"

But Dany refuses, and a strange gloom appears in her eyes when she talks of King's Landing.

Maege tries to remember all she has heard of the unlucky Dragon Queen, whose dragons destroyed the Others at the cost of their own lives. Daenerys Targaryen was overthrown by Stannis Baratheon mere months after that. People said she was dead, but Stannis, honest as he was, said that no body has actually been found. The singers have already composed a tragic song about the Queen throwing herself into the Blackwater.

The new royal family remembers the support of the North. Princess Shireen often writes to Lyra, with whom she has been friendly, and Maege is able to learn the latest news from the South from her daughter.

One day, the letter tells the Mormonts that the trade with Essos has finally stabilized again: the cities of Slaver's Bay have completely reinstated slavery, their bread and water.

That evening, Maege almost startles Jorah and Dany in Dany's room. The door is opened a little, and she tiptoes back in time when she sees them in an embrace.

"My poor queen," Jorah is whispering, caressing her silver-golden hair. "Oh, Dany, my heart."

Dany's body is shaking, and Maege realizes the woman is sobbing.

"Don't call me queen anymore… I am no queen. Perhaps I have never been one. Everything I fought for is lost and forgotten – don't call me queen, Jorah, I am now only Dany, Dany from Lys."

"For me, you are always a queen and always will be," Jorah declares as he starts to unfasten her dress.

"You are happy with this turn of events, aren't you?" Dany says, and he stops in his tracks. "You are back home, I'm your wife, and I'm entirely dependent on your goodwill because you can reveal my true name any time you want…"

"Dany! Whoever put this idea into your head? I would never do that!"

However, he stands up and steps away from her:

"I'm sorry, Dany. I have never intended it to look like this. You seemed willing enough all the time, and I… oh, never mind. If it's so disgusting to you, I won't trouble you anymore. Dany, forgive me – I know you are used to warmer weathers, and that the company of my aunt and cousins is strange for you. If you like it, I will hire some southern handmaidens to keep you com…"

She is up too and puts her finger to his lips.

"Lady Maege _has_ said you never learn," she says. "Are you honestly willing to waste your money once again to try and bring the South here? And – Jorah, I didn't want to say these words. About you being happy. Don't know why I did – maybe it's the news of Slaver's Bay, it sent me all to pieces…"

He takes her in his arms again. Hesitantly. He kisses her tears away as she quietly weeps for the cities on the other end of the world. 

"I sometimes feel a brute myself," he confesses. "Not about taking you away, of course, nobody knows what the Baratheons would have done to you, especially Stannis's fanatical wife. But I intended only to bring you to safety, to hide you, no one would search for you here, I don't know what came over us while we were on our way..."

" _He licked the honey from her hair_ ," Dany quotes, laughing: Bear Island has no bards or harpists, but some songs can be sung by anyone with a voice, and she has picked up a few popular tunes since her arrival. "Do tell me, how would have you _hidden_ a strange lady who's no relation of yours? People would have started asking questions anyway. Jorah, I'm sorry I said... what I said. Believe me, I am happy here. I like it that people are all free and live at peace with each other. I like the honesty and the openness. I like your aunt and cousins, even if they don't like me much. I like it that women aren't thought of as property, that they wield weapons. Oh, by the way... you might laugh, but... would you teach me to fight with a sword? I've watched your cousins training, and it looks impressive. And I want to ask Lady Maege to instruct me to use an axe, when I have the courage."

"You want to... Oh, of course!"

Dany pulls him into a kiss, and the talking stops altogether.

Suddenly realizing that she's been listening and ashamed, Maege quietly walks away. 

Who would have doubted? With all her apologies, Dany hasn't said she is happy in her marriage. But she is right: marrying her and passing her off as a Lyseni was the only way Jorah could surely protect her. A strange Valyrian with no ties would have caused gossip to spread like lightning.

No, Dany doesn't love Jorah. But she loves Bear Island.

 _Lynesse loved Jorah, at least at first, but didn't love our home; maybe the reverse would turn out better,_ Maege thinks.

In the first months of spring, Dany gives birth to a boy. Jorah suggests a string of Essosi names that sound like pure abracadabra for Maege and her daughters, but Dany calls her son Rodrik, after the Stark king who had won Bear Island. For her, it wins the hearts of the islanders. This, and her constant training fights, and the fluent Common Tongue that gains more and more of the Northern accent.

Rodrik is followed by Little Maege or simply Maegie, and she by twin brothers Jeor and Jory. Their mother grows more muscular as she trains with a longsword and an axe, and soon she can hold off Alysane, Lyra or Lyanna in the training yard. Her features lose their southern softness and grow sharper, and her skin pales. Ten years later, people hardly remember that Lady Mormont is a foreigner. Maege, elderly but still energetic, treats her as an equal, and Alysane is her dear friend. 

Jorah is more enamored of her than before, and fiercely proud of his children on whom he dotes.

Dany still keeps lizards as pets, though. They live in the cracks in her room's wooden walls.

Every evening, she coos to them in Valyrian and watches them run across the floor. Maybe she secretly expects one of them to sprout wings and breathe fire. Whatever. Maege never asks.


End file.
